Well, creating one’s own website isn’t much necessary unless you are into creating too much videos in count that as well extends for longer time period. Usually nobody wants that pain of risking their money into something that probably wouldn’t attract attention of mainstream public. YouTube is the most visited website in the world when it comes to watching the videos online. So, what’s the chance of any other website being one of those leading sites one day? It’s extremely minimum, not even close to other brand-names such as Vimeo, DailyMotion, Flickr, MetaCafe, Worldstarhiphop, Netflix, etc.
Now, if you are quite serious about owning a video Website in which you as well as other users could upload numerous videos, you must keep some points in mind. How about monetization that your users could do as well just like they do in YouTube?
Why to create a video website of my own?
Some people have so many videos to upload which is related to a specific topic and is lengthy as well. While sites like YouTube does allow uploading N number of videos, if you are still interested in owning a brand-name and a global recognition, you must begin to own a website that functions just as any other commercial sites do. Once you initiate it yourself, you might find it interesting and might also start getting the public attention. Monetization requires certain magnitude of public reach, which if happens, may let you advertise stuffs that you don’t own but do contribute. Once you realize that your website has gained much needed attention you are free to allow your users as well to upload their stuffs and monetize as well.
Although, YouTube is the most commonly used site, there are also those countries where this domain is either entirely banned or gets banned briefly. These countries are North Korea, China, Turkey, Thailand, Germany, Russia, Sudan, etc. The reasons in most cases is the unsatisfaction regarding the types of contents being uploaded and watched across the world. Now the thing is, what if you are a citizen of China or North Korea? Since, you are not given the permit to access YouTube, you could make a video website of your own country where anyone could do the same thing as they would do on YouTube; provided that the country’s specific policies are followed AND this particular website would be watched by the citizens of your own country and absolutely by no one outside the political fencing.
Video sharing platform has emerged into a new source to brand the upcoming as well as existing market. Most people prefer watching videos if they need to learn about something because it is possible to educate people through speaking and get it shot in a video camera, which covers greater audience, much larger than you could imagine. Many people do not want to read since it gets boring and quite challenging to make users continue their (reading) role till the end. But if a video content marks the excellence it surely creates an impact upon mainstream public as people likely watch the whole content and share it on social networking websites as well. There are, therefore, many kinds of channels in sites like YouTube whose contents primarily focus on a specific subject such as cooking recipes, DIY methods, education, politics, learning a new language, musical instrument, tutorials, and so on. It also consists of official movie trailers, advertisements, songs containing the performer/dancer/singer, etc.
One could also make a video website that is primarily focused on a specific topic only such as the politics, musical videos, comedy videos, etc. This means that if a website is focused on uploading tutorials for educational purpose only, you cannot upload randomly anything; if it’s about musical videos, you can only upload the related contents.
Creating a video website and taking care of its SEO plus the content marketing so that the search engine bots notice them quite enough to place at the beginning is all it takes, is it? No, there is a lot of stuff that mustn’t be ignored. Read more! Following are the points you need to remember if you want to start such a site:
1. Domain name – This is one of the most crucial part when it comes to the nomenclature because your domain will be visited by public across the world (if your plans are that far, OR even if your domain is country/genre specific creating an impact is the first step). The name that you choose for your domain must be short and easy, and most importantly that kind of term that could be remembered by most visitors. While creating a video website, think about YouTube, DailyMotion, vimeo, etc. that successfully covered the market audience throughout the world. Observe that the names actually seem like brand, obviously, these had their own struggles initially but successfully had (and have to this day) regular and dedicated uploaders/contributors and visitors.
2. Web hosting platform – Who would want to visit such website that goes down every other day? This is a BIG turn-off and will piss off potential visitors. The server MUST run all the time with no issues (or even issues are there, these must go unnoticed and resolved swiftly) when it comes to streaming the video data. The thing is no one wants to wait for the buffer to proceed. They want it to be done instantly. A good internet connection is definitely a reason why a visitor cannot watch your video but server at the other end ought to be functioning well too. If a visitor observes that despite of him/her having a proper net connection the video cannot run properly (s)he will never visit your website ever again. Therefore, you need to have a thorough research on the web hosting platforms so that you get the best deals. Know that your website will be the dedicated one that will need enough space for video storage and so the cheaper version wouldn’t cooperate. As the website expands, your hosting package would move to a better version with more facilities.
3. Themes & templates – This part is important too because the looks matter a lot. Your video website must appear attractive so that the users find it terrific and likely visit it again. No matter how noteworthy the domain name shows up on the search engine’s pages, if the design isn’t right it will gradually lose its market value even before it actually starts holding attention. Sites like WordPress offers such kinds of themes. You may Google for “Wordpress video” and you will get the relevant webpages. There are other sites as well. Compare the packages offered, go through the reviews and decide for yourself patiently. You may also go through the tutorials as well in the YouTube itself! Dive into the ocean of internet with the right keywords and expand your knowledge!
A video template must have the following features so as to be a remarkable competitor in front of already established websites:
1. Simple and powerful user interface
2. Option of High Definition video sharing
3. Social media sharing
4. Meta tags and descriptions
5. Multi-channel monetization facility
6. SEO friendly video URL
7. Complete administrator features
8. Responsive design
9. Lightweight design that has fast loading speed
10. Ajax powered login along with double security measures
11. Right-to-left support for video titles (if you want to cover those people who speak/read/write such languages)
It is possible that you get everything what you want, but still want to modify even more as per your own needs then you must hire a software programmer who has an in-depth knowledge of the software development, especially in this very field OR you may also try your own hands in this modification if you have this knowledge yourself. If you hire somebody, make sure that the person isn’t a fraud being found randomly on the internet. It is best to give this task to someone you personally know (and trust!). Do remember that NEVER try to build from the scratch, else you will end up with having lots of bugs that no one is going to fix and the idea of launching such site would be a distant dream.
Branding your website through Advertisements
First of all, it’s not an easy task to take an initiative and create a brand-name like above mentioned websites. It takes a lot of courage (and investment!) to gain public attention, to make them aware that such kind of site exists. This is where the Sales and Marketing take shape. You might have noticed that there are a lot of advertisements that show up at many webpages, whether it is related to your previous web-searches or is based upon entirely new name or concept. For instance, you may be searching for flights but some hotel related Ads might show up. Some advertisements have nothing to do with our current ongoing searches, such as fairness pills, make money online, etc. It is likely that a few people will click on those Ads and try to know more about the given information. This is how you could brand your business. Initially it might not catch much interest and the only thing to publicize is through mouth-to-mouth publicity. This is only possible if your website creates a positive impact on few of those who actually tried to trust your brand.
Monetization
Your website must attract enough traffic so that the advertisers start taking interest in investing time and money on your video website. If they are convinced quite enough that large number of people visit you each day, they will likely start advertising their brands through which you as well as your users could earn.
Sources from where the money comes
1. Advertisements – These are in the form of pre-roll (Ads shown before the video), mid-roll (Ads shown in-between) and post-roll (Ads shown afterwards) which may appear anywhere while a user intends to watch the video. The advertisements are also seen on a web-page at the top, bottom or right/left side even if the videos aren’t running. The administrator, i.e. the user who owns the channel OR the owner of the website, has the authority to allow-disallow wherever he wants or does not want the Ads showing up. The channel owner has no permit to control whichever types of Ads are allowed to appear on the screen in his/her own videos. He or she simply can either allow or disallow.
2. Affiliate marketing – It is likely that out of so many people who ‘Skip’ watching the advertisements, there are also those who watch it and decide to visit that particular third party webpage as well. Moreover, there are also those who will buy the product being marketed. Now for every purchase, that occurs as a result of such kind of users, the brand owners give a particular amount to the respective website owners as well as to those who own the channel. This is the policy of Sales & Marketing. Although, the amount of money for each purchase is decided solely by the brand owners who own the products and/or services being marketed throughout the internet. It differs in each case.
3. Direct video sales – There are some dedicated channels for only brand owners who always advertise through video uploads. The marketing could be related to the products being launched, special deals and discounts, price modifications, combo offers, etc. For instance, if you follow the Nestle brand, it will show you all kinds of information about Nescafe, Maggi noodles, Masala, etc. If you follow the Cadbury brand, it will always send you updates of different kinds of chocolates, chocolate powder, Bournvita, and so on. Those are fond of these items, they will definitely visit the website.
Who pays the money?
1. Users and subscribers – There are websites other than YouTube that ask users for the payment for watching the contents, may be not all kinds of videos but in certain cases like if a visitor wishes to watch more than specific count, or he/she wishes to watch something of a specific brand.
2. Affiliate programs – The brands pay the video website owner some amount of money if the end users reach their site and purchase something after watching the commercials being shared.
3. Endorsers – The corporations and brands do the payment to the owner of video website as well as the channel owners if their commercials are shown wherever they wish. This is how their products are marketed and most likely purchased.
Last but not the least, a positive approach works wonders towards initiating, expanding and continuing the business. The more you get practical and confident, the more you are likely getting the success. Even YouTube’s server would crash every 10 minutes when suddenly it gained publicity and too many people visited/uploaded/watched there, all at once! But they didn’t back off but kept a positive approach, the result of which made it the most watched video website across the internet. So, nothing is impossible!
Author : Ankita Purohit